Well, there’s just no getting around it, it has been quite some time since the last update in the Hi-Point 2,000-round test series. Apologies on that. We’ve decided to simply power through and finish up the testing and wrap this up, so we locked ourselves on the range once it reopened and put the last 400 rounds through the C9.
Let’s start with a quick recap. After our initial testing of the Hi-Point C9, we surmised it might need to be cleaned and lubricated to see if that cleared up some of the malfunctions. At the 300-round mark, the C9 got a full fields strip, clean and lube. Since it had sat for so long, we felt it was necessary (and fair) to perform a quick clean and lube, running a boresnake down the barrel and spritzing the action with a bit of CLP. The same caveat as before still applies: the 10-round magazines consistently failed to lock back when empty, a phenomenon not seen when using the 8-round magazines.
For this final round of testing, we had 100 rounds of Aguila 115-grain FMJ, 100 rounds of CCI Blaser Brass 115-grain FMJ, 100 rounds of Federal Premium Syntech 124-grain TSJ and 100 rounds of SIG Sauer 147-grain FMJ. We are continuing to run predominantly full-metal-jacket ammo (or equivalent, in the case of the Federal Syntech). As a reminder, this approximates the “real world” ammunition likely to be purchased for use with a Hi-Point C9.
We experienced one more failure in this last round of testing, and it was a similar malfunction as the last update. At round #1,809, using Aguila FMJ ammo, the slide failed to return to battery. Again, we’re surmising that, as with the last time this malfunction was seen, the slide had dug into the base of my thumb and stopped forward progression of the slide. It’s not really fair to call this a fault of the gun, with the heavy slide needed for the blowback operation; it’s at least partially operator error for not achieving a grip that clears the slide. Again, it is a malfunction of some sort that occurred while testing the C9, so it is being reported.
So, as a final recap of malfunctions: We have fired a total of 2,001 rounds through the Hi-Point C9 and experienced six malfunctions: Round #58 (Aguila) saw a failure to feed, round #202 (SIG) was a double feed, round #238 (SIG) was a nose-down, round #436 (Syntech) was a stovepipe and rounds #1,189 and 1,809 (Aguila) were a failure of the slide to return to full battery. It does not appear that any one particular type, weight or style of ammunition is more or less reliable in the C9.
Six failures – two of which are at least partially operator error – in 2,000 rounds. Not bad for a pistol that has an MSRP of $199.
